Many Pratt in Venice students participate in the program specifically for the opportunity to engage in hands-on research in Venice’s libraries and archives. Among those are graduate students enrolled in the dual Master’s degree program in History of Art and Design and Library Science (M.A./M.S.L.I.S.), jointly administered by the History of Art and Design Department and the School of Information at Pratt.
These Pratt in Venice participants often go on to work in libraries and archives of their own, bringing the unique experience of their time in Venice at the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, the Fondazione Cini, and other Venetian research centers to their current work.
Pratt in Venice recently sat down with several of these alums to catch up and discuss the nature of their work in the time of pandemic.
Pratt in Venice student Yi (Vicky) Luo (PiV ‘19) at work in the historic reading room designed by Baldassare Longhena of the Fondazione Giorgio Cini, San Giorgio, Venice. Many Pratt in Venice students, particularly those involved in research on Materials and Techniques of Venetian Art, make use of the collections at the Cini.
Polly Cancro (PiV ’15, and Program Assistant ‘15–’16), Reader Services Librarian, The Morgan Library & Museum
Kelly Davis (PiV ’12 and ’13), Metadata Specialist at Getty Research Institute
Hilary Thompson (PiV ’09, and onsite assistant ‘10–’11), Director of User Services & Resource Sharing, University of Maryland Libraries
Annalise Welte (PiV ’13), Reference Librarian, Getty Research Institute
What kind of work do you do in your library/archive/research center?
Kelly Davis: I manage a research database, the Provenance Index at the Getty Research Institute. This consists of editorial and art historical work blended with information technology.
Hilary Thompson: I oversee the User Services & Resource sharing department, which is responsible for many of the public-facing services offered at the main library, including customer service at the first and second floor desks; circulation of books, media, and equipment; interlibrary loan and document delivery; course reserves; collection maintenance; billing and user accounts; shipping and receiving; and the learning commons and makerspace. We also operate the Libraries' high-density storage facility and co-manage the Ask Us virtual information services with the Research, Teaching, & Learning department.
Polly Cancro: As Reader Services Librarian in the Sherman Fairchild Reading Room, where I have worked in various capacities for almost five years, my primary responsibility is facilitating access to the Morgan’s special and reference collections for a wide range of researchers (e.g. academics, graduate and undergraduate students, artists, writers, curators, etc.). This includes corresponding with researchers and reviewing consultation requests, responding to research queries remotely and in person, liaising with curators, preparing material (which lives in a vault) for research appointments, as well as assisting researchers and supervising the proper handling and use of materials in the Reading Room. Researchers consult a wide variety of materials, including literary and historical manuscripts, incunabula and other early printed books, archival material, medieval and Renaissance manuscripts, music manuscripts, drawings and prints, photographs, and ancient Western Asian seals and tablets.
In addition to these primary responsibilities, I also assist the Head of Reader Services with giving presentations to classes and visiting information professionals, and work on projects as time permits. For example, I am currently rehousing, arranging, and describing a small unprocessed archival collection (J.P. Morgan and Co. Records), as well as cataloging and digitizing correspondence between Henri and Pierre Matisse from the Pierre Matisse Gallery Archives. I also create bi-weekly Reading Room content for the Morgan’s primary social media accounts.
Annalise Welte: I work with researchers worldwide to connect them to the collections of the Getty Research Institute. Some of the things I work on are leading orientations to the library and our resources, writing research guides, and facilitating rights and reproductions of collection materials.
McKeldin Library, the main branch of the University of Maryland Libraries, where Hilary Thompson (PiV ‘09) is Director of User Services & Resource Sharing. (Photo: Bgervais via Wikimedia, CC-BY-SA 3.0.)
How has the nature of your work changed during the past year? Do the projects/services that you provide look significantly different now than they did pre-pandemic?
Polly Cancro: The Morgan’s Reading Room was closed from mid-March to early September, and all Reading Room staff was working from home during this time. Unsurprisingly, this required a significant shift, as the majority of our work during normal times is, by nature, in person. As you might imagine, a lot of our work shifted more toward offering remote services for researchers (e.g. doing more in-depth research on behalf of researchers, providing study photos of material, etc.), but a lot of that work couldn’t be done until staff could get back on site in September. In the interim, we answered questions as best as we could with the limited access we had, while keeping track of what needed to be looked into further once we could get back on site. We have also worked on developing more resources around our collections to further facilitate access and discovery, and we have discussed the possibility of offering virtual appointments as well as a chat service.
The Reading Room is currently open to researchers with limited hours (3 days a week, 10am–4pm) and capacity (max 4 researchers per day), and we have had to develop very strict procedures and protocols with COVID-19 restrictions in mind. While we are receiving some in-person appointment requests, we still have significant demand for remote services, as many researchers are unable to travel or simply are not comfortable coming in person.
It is also worth noting that in late May 2020 a Black Lives Matter Working Group formed (virtually) at the Morgan (with support from staff across all departments) in solidarity with the fight against systemic racism, injustice, and violence. Many of this group’s proposals were eventually incorporated into the Morgan’s 6-month DEAI plan, and the group continues to work with the administration toward making the Morgan a more equitable, diverse, and inclusive place. I have been very involved in this work (in the larger group but also in subgroups specifically focused on critical and ethical cataloging, frontline and essential worker well-being, and as transparency and accountability), so this has also been a significant shift in the nature of my work during the past year.
Kelly Davis: I started a large-scale reconciliation project with our people authorities about a year ago, and it has been a perfect transition to working remotely, as it's detail-oriented digital work best suited for one person. That has been my main focus and it's going well. With other projects, like our long-term transformation to Linked Data, we're of course meeting remotely, but I miss the days when we all sat in the digital training room in the GRI and had the semantic architects draw up RDF on whiteboards. Now, everything is limited to my screen size and it's harder to interact with and understand. I have some digital ideas that it feels hard to implement in this somewhat chaotic environment, even if my apartment is a quiet and calm space, the past year has been really traumatic on many levels and I don't always have the same bandwidth for creativity that I used to.
Hilary Thompson: Given our department's focus on the library's physical space, print collections, and in-person interaction with users, the shift to 100% remote work and virtual services in March 2020 was a dramatic one. Chat and email replaced our service desks as the primary means of answering users' questions; books and media could only be borrowed electronically; and due dates for physical materials loaned prior to the pandemic were repeatedly extended. As phased reopening began in July, onsite workflows and staffing were reconfigured to maximize social distancing; a new curbside pickup service was developed to deliver materials and equipment to users; returns are now quarantined for several days before discharging and re-shelving; and limited appointments are required to visit the library. Although we are now able to offer many of the same services that we did prior to the pandemic, the underlying workflows, delivery methods, and user experience remain quite different from what they were in early 2020.
Annalise Welte: Due to the situation in Los Angeles, most staff are working from home still. While things may look different, reference staff at the Getty Research Institute are able to provide lots of remote services. We’re working on what in-person visits will look like when we can reopen to the public, but for now we’re still connecting with researchers via phone and email. We have welcomed interns and scholars remotely and I’ve been leading library catalog training sessions and introductions to our resources via Zoom. It’s not the same of course, but I’m really proud of what we’ve been able to offer.
The Getty Research Institute at the Getty Center, Los Angeles, where Kelly Davis (PiV ‘12 and ‘13) is a Metadata Specialist and Annalise Welte (PiV ‘13) is Reference Librarian.
Has the pandemic and new way of working brought to light or revealed anything to you regarding the nature or importance of libraries, archives, or issues of access?
Polly Cancro: I suppose it has further demonstrated how essential librarians and archivists are, particularly as research facilitators -- as indispensable entry points to special collections -- even if we are not always valued as such!
Hilary Thompson: For me, the pandemic has underscored the importance of interinstitutional collaboration in responding to shared challenges and expanding access to information. For example, when most of the country and the world was under lockdown in Spring 2020, the HathiTrust Digital Library team quickly launched its Emergency Temporary Access Service (ETAS), providing member libraries with electronic access to digitized print materials that are still under copyright protection. At UMD 923,000+ titles (approx. 40% of our print collection) became accessible to users working remotely within four weeks of the university shutting down, a feat that we never could have been accomplished on our own. Likewise, interlibrary loan practitioners came together and launched Resource Sharing during COVID-19 (RSCVD), a volunteer initiative to fill requests from non-profit libraries around the world quickly, efficiently, and at no cost during the pandemic. I find such collaborations truly inspiring, and I hope we see even more of them moving forward.
Annalise Welte: Issues of access have been brought to the front of the line for us. Having digital collections is more important than ever. Since we provided services remotely to researchers outside of Los Angeles, we were already set up for this in some ways. But it’s become clear that we need to figure out the right balance between digital surrogates and the original material.
Lately the Getty has been working with IIIF (International Image Interoperability Framework) across our various programs, so I’ve been working on ways to bring this to researchers. Using IIIF is a wonderful way to recreate some of the benefits of examining physical materials in a virtual environment: you can zoom in to examine tiny details, compare works next to each other, and more.
The main reading room of printed books of the Biblioteca Nazionale Marciana, Venice. Many Pratt in Venice students make use of the excellent collections and archives here in their research projects.
What are you most looking forward to post-pandemic?
Kelly Davis: Getting back into the office, having my much larger desk and storage space there to spread out, accessing the archive, moving forward on some ideas I have, in-person meetings which don't have as much possible misunderstandings or confusion, traveling for conferences, meeting new colleagues...basically "getting back to normal" in my day-to-day work life. Being able to pop my head over my coworker's cubicle and ask for help or discuss things. Coffee breaks with my work friends. Being back at our beautiful campus. While the downtime afforded by Work From Home has been nice, it's hard not to feel like things have been put on 'hold', even while we do our daily work and progress as best as we can in these circumstances.
Hilary Thompson: Traveling again, especially abroad!
Annalise Welte: I'm looking forward to working hands-on with the physical collections again. We can do amazing things with digitized items, but it will never fully replace the tactile experience of going through archival boxes or walking through the stacks. I remember looking through a scrapbook in one of the GRI archives to find a specific image for a request when I happened across some photographs of my tiny hometown in Maine. It's moments like that – finding little treasures – I miss the most.
